Home > News Archive > Prominent writers call for release of Chinese activist

Prominent writers call for release of Chinese activist

AFP

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (L) and his wife Liu Xia pose for a photograph in Beijing in 2002. Prominent international authors and academics have called for the release of Liu who has been detained for 15 days after signing a charter calling for democratic reform.File/AFP/China

Prominent international authors and academics called Tuesday for the release of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who has been detained for 15 days after signing a charter calling for democratic reform.

In a letter released by activist group Human Rights Watch, novelists such as Britain’s Salman Rushdie and Italy’s Umberto Eco expressed their concern at the “ongoing arbitrary detention” of Liu.

The letter was sent to China’s President Hu Jintao, the rights organisation said.

Liu was taken away by police on December 8, ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, his wife Liu Xia told AFP.

Since then, Liu Xia and Jiang Qisheng, another prominent Chinese activist who also signed Charter 08, have made repeated visits to the police to try and find out why Liu is being detained, without success.

Under Chinese law, authorities must tell family members where a person is being kept and the reason for their detention within 24 hours, Jiang said.

“The presumption is that Mr. Liu has been arrested solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed under China’s constitution and international law,” the letter to Hu said.

Other signatories included Irish poet Seamus Heaney and Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, both of whom are Nobel laureates in literature.

The letter was also signed by academics from around the world as well as representatives of the human rights community.

“It is… urgent that judicial authorities throughout China cease to use China’s anti-subversion law to prosecute peaceful critics such as Mr. Liu Xiaobo, who should be released immediately without conditions,” it said.

Jiang said he welcomed the letter, which he thought was the first such display of concern over a Chinese dissident by a large number of prominent international authors and academics.

“This will help, at what degree it’s difficult to say,” he told AFP.

“But the more people speak out, the bigger the pressure.”

The European Union and the United States have already expressed their concern over Liu’s detention, but China promptly dismissed their worries, branding them as interference in its domestic affairs.

The Chinese foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment on the letter sent to Hu.

Copyright © 2008 AFP

Published in Google News